Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 06.07.15
Posted on June 7th, 2015
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Question: What was Abraham’s appeal to the Babylonians?
Answer: Abraham is the property of bestowal (Hesed), the quality of love at a small degree (level).
Abraham addressed the Babylonians and asked them to remember how successfully they cooperated when their egoism was smaller. He advised them to rise above their divisive ego and live in love and friendship.
However, this work was unfeasible for them since it implied that people had to help each other and trigger the Reforming Light by asking the Creator to grant it to them in order to actually live in accordance with the rule of “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
It implied that each of them was a “different object” detached from each other by selfishness. Was it possible to build a bridge between them? It is a very difficult task! It can be achieved only with the help of Abraham’s property, Hesed (mercy, bestowal), when despite our alienating egos we still try to correct ourselves in order to reach a phase when our neighbor is as important and precious to us as we are to ourselves. This is how the principle of love thy neighbor as thyself is implemented in life.
Abraham gathered his adherents and led them out of Babylon to the land of Canaan. Today, it is almost impossible to imagine how they managed to withstand such a grueling, long walk through the desert. But it was not about a physical journey; rather, it signified that Abraham elevated his people from the egoistic degree called “Babylon” to the level of the “land of Canaan,” today’s the land of Israel.
In other words, it was an inner journey throughout which people gradually advanced from their prior desires and properties, and got farther and farther away from Babylon and closer to the land of Canaan. By moving forward, they elevated.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14
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Question: What is the global world?
Answer: This is our world in all the possible kinds of connections with itself. We must investigate it to feel its universal global nature, feeling ourselves as a part of it, becoming like it, and transforming into being its useful component.
Question: What does a simple person need this for?
Answer: It is to become part of the world. Without this, you will not carry out your mission, but, sooner or later the strict laws of nature will bring you to this by the way of suffering.
First and foremost, you need to be useful to society because you are a part of it, and you cannot escape it. In society must prevail the full understanding that it is integral and everyone within it absolutely depends on everyone. So, this obligates everyone to be involved in integral education, in the wisdom of connection, because otherwise you will not get anything from society.
In addition, if you don’t want to participate in this, then you will go outside of the framework of the society. You will do what you want, but no one will serve you and no one will help you with anything. Through your lack of participation, you are sticking a label of rejection on yourself.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 5/13/15
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In the News (psyfactor): “300 years ago, at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, European philosophers naively believed that the human intellect would soon dispel the ‘darkness of prejudice’ since all the false opinions and views are in sum the result of illiteracy and ignorance of scientific facts.
“It would be enough to ‘educate’ people about the truth so that they would reject the former prejudices and begin to behave according to the claims of reason. This optimism collapsed at the beginning of the 20th century. We know that the development of science does not transform human society into being more rational, and that in parallel with the growth of knowledge, the amount of wild myths also increases.
“Modern people ignore facts if they are against their personal opinions and views. And attempts to change the false opinions and views of people arouse the opposite effect, the reinforcement of prejudices. Only if one recognizes the fact that one must add to a person’s pride about himself, increasing his personal assessment, will he recognize the truth of the facts and change his opinion.”
My Comment: Man is a desire to receive and to have pleasure. When we play with this desire, leaving him the possibility of filling himself with pride, and in the case of loss, we can change his opinions and views. We only need to direct him towards fulfillment of pride about himself, elevating his self-esteem, and he will move on to this option, and it will no longer make a difference what other facts I have.
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Question: How could the Creator, who is completely good, and doeth good, create the evil inclination that doesn’t bear His property? Why did He do it? Why aren’t we born to a world that is full of benevolence?
Answer: If we were born in a completely wonderful world, we would be like angels who have no evil inclination. That is, we would exist only in accordance with one singular force.
However, the purpose of the creation is to attain the Creator’s level, get smarter, perceive, and reach the same state as His, acquire similar power and parallel properties with the Creator, i.e., become totally like Him.
To achieve this level, we just have to bear the properties that are opposite to the Creator. However, we also should possess the qualities that are similar to His, i.e., we should be comprised of two parts. One part is the evil inclination, the properties that are adverse to the Creator, with which we are born to this world.
Whereas, the second part, the Creator’s qualities, should be acquired by us, on our own. This is how we are supposed to “build” ourselves by involving both parts more vigorously, thus becoming more and more like the Creator.
The process of achieving His level consists of 125 degrees. It continues until we reach the state called “The sons of the Creator returned to Him.” It happens when we reach equivalence of properties with the Creator. For that, we need to be comprised of two opposite parts.
Therefore, the Creator made the evil inclination, a selfish desire. However, He is the One who grants us benevolent desires when we ask Him. These two forces allow us to reach perfection.
Question: But how can I obtain properties that I know nothing about?
Answer: To make it happen you have to join a group that works on the same task. You should engage in it. You won’t be able to do it alone, on your own. Group connection elicits the Returning Light, and thus receive a second, positive force of nature that balances out the negativity in each of us.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 5/17/15
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Comment: Humanity has always aspired to happiness and has wanted to build a just society. The famous Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam, in the article “The Last Generation” wrote that in the end we will achieve a society that will be communistic. The New Philosophical Dictionary gives a definition for communism and sees it as a human error. There it says that Marx didn’t foresee that they would try to realize the communist utopia in its most active form not in the most developed capitalist nations, but in the economically failed nations.
Answer: The idea is that the concept of communism is closer to the societies inhabited by a poor, needy, simple, population where everyone is equal in those aspects. Lack of a developed industry forces them to be engaged in agriculture and maintaining themselves. It is possible to call the most ancient societies on Earth, where everything was shared, communistic. The small ego forced people to work together, to think together, and to accept decisions together. But if there are no natural and external preconditions for such mutual relationships, it is impossible to build a commune.
In our day, humanity is beginning to reveal itself as a common general commune: Whether we like it or not, all of us depend upon each other. No person develops by himself; rather, nature develops us. We don’t even know what tomorrow will bring. Forces have been released in us and we act subconsciously, complying with instincts that are derived from within.
The question arises: Does nature want to bring us into a closed state like a bubble, where all of us will be dependent upon each other and we will become a reluctant commune?
Imagine how terrible it would be to find yourself in such a commune with your inflated ego! After all, when we inevitably move to a closed society in which all the people in the world feel themselves as one family, but one in which it is impossible to exist in peace, then we naturally try to tear all of the connections between us apart. Conditions like these are specifically the preconditions for wars, conflicts, and terrorism. Humanity is subconsciously doing everything in its power to refrain from that connection, which its evil inclination is not ready to endure.
So what can be done if we see that nature is moving us towards this anyway? We get divorced, we move away from each other, we consume drugs and antidepressants, only because instinctively we don’t want to be interconnected in the right way.
Every nation has its own faith. Suddenly in the beginning of the 21st century in Russia there was a surge of Orthodoxy. This was the policy of the government, and not something that was derived from the people. Wherever they turn them, that is where they go.
We see in what critical directions the Arab nations are developing. Everything rests on the fact that each nation retains its circle, preventing the flow from another stream. The same thing also happens with immigrants in various countries. They don’t dissolve into the culture of the nations that receive them; each remains in its sector.
Humanity acts unconsciously against a forced general approach. But there is no choice; we are getting closer to each other anyway because nature has inserted us into a state of complete dependence on each other. This is a law of development that cannot be opposed; it is above us.
To be continued…
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From KabTV’s “About Our Life” 5/11/15
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The left line helps us build the connection between us. Without the ego, we wouldn’t be able to acquire a form, so it isn’t destroyed. It is as if you place a sheet of copper or gold on it and begin to hammer it until a relief is formed.
It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this is the reason for all our sins because our intentions are really good. You are sure that you can work with all the intentions in order to bestow, but there is a short-circuit and everything is burnt; suddenly you fall into darkness.
We undergo states of ups and downs during the preparation period, in the transition process from Lo Lishma (not For Her Name) to Lishma, the intention to bestow. However, since they are minor, they don’t lead to great mistakes. We need this period in order to balance the two attributes in a person properly so that both the Light and the darkness, the desire and the attribute of bestowal, will be seen as equal, and a person will understand that it is impossible to do without them. The attribute of darkness and the attribute of Light are equal in the attainment of the Creator, and you can’t have one without the other.
A person must properly ascend above his desire to break forward, and to bestow even more. It is as if we all say, for example, how wonderful and good you are because you have done someone a favor, and under the influence of these words, you burst with enthusiasm and bestow even more! Then, you begin to regret it. This regret rolls you down from all the levels just like in the kids’ game of Chutes and Ladders when you advance and suddenly are thrown backward. However, in order to guard ourselves from that, we are given a certain period of time during which these two forces must be balanced properly in us.
The attribute of receiving is the upper mind since it is only thanks to the ego that we begin to understand and perceive the way things really are. The right line, on the other hand, is bestowal and love, and there is no Din (Judgment) here, no limitations, no contrasts, no domination or control. The left line includes everything in it. It is impossible to discover the Creator’s Light without it. The ego is our great helper, but against us.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/31/14
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